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Web Crush Wednesdays: Bad Bad Things

Here at Lady Geek Girl and Friends, we like recommending cool diverse webcomics, and I’ve come to add another one to our list as this week’s Web Crush. It’s called Bad Bad Things. I found it thanks to a recommendation reblogged by the queermediarepresentation Tumblr (which might be a Web Crush for another week), and I instantly fell in love with the gorgeous art, mysterious dystopian world, and diverse characters.

The creators, Avery Graham and Alex Semmelhack, describe Bad Bad Things as a “dystopian horror coming of age story”. They warn for potentially upsetting content, but a list of content warnings is provided with each new page on their Tumblr. The action is set in a dystopian magical world where the main four teenage characters live together in a sort of make-shift house in the middle of a ruined city in a desert. It is not made very clear yet, but they are apparently runaways and in hiding from a genocidal government.

If the premise is not enough to hook you, there are the characters themselves, who you can’t help but root for and who are all people of color, by the way. First, we have Alice—a cute chubby cinnamon roll of anxiety who loves plants and has magical healing powers. Second is the technology geek, Daniel, who is a super sweet kid and an amputee (and may also be gay). Next up is Milo, a transgender boy with an apparent penchant for impulsive bar-fighting and kissing cute people regardless of their gender. Rounding out the cast is a trained assassin, Maria, who is transgender as well. Additionally, all of the kids are neurodivergent. Although the specifics are quite difficult to figure out from the comic alone, the creators have talked about it on their Tumblr. Alice is autistic and has an anxiety disorder (she also self-harms sometimes), Milo is an autistic person with addiction, Daniel suffers from PTSD and sometimes has hallucinations, and Maria has borderline personality disorder and PTSD.

I don’t think I can pick my favorite thing about Bad Bad Things. I think it’s a tie between the gorgeous art and the way the characters all care for each other in their different ways. I also really appreciate the diversity, especially the way Milo and Maria are portrayed without the usual “born in the wrong body” and related transgender character cliches, with neither Milo nor Maria conforming to gender stereotypes.

Almost 70 panels in, Bad Bad Things has been going steadily for a year and a half now, so it’s not a difficult job to catch up and it has a promising future. I couldn’t recommend it more highly. If you like beautiful art, diversity, a band of likable misfits and can handle the themes of trauma and mental illness, you should go read Bad Bad Things! You can do so on their website, Tapastic or their Tumblr. If you like the webcomic, you can also support the creators via Patreon!